FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Kathleen McGarry, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2014-2015, will visit the University of Arkansas next spring. Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholar Program provides students and faculty the opportunity to engage with top academics from other institutions.  

McGarry, a faculty member at UCLA and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, will be at the Sam M. Walton College of Business on March 5-6. She will be part of the economics department’s seminar series, meet with students, and visit classes while on campus. McGarry’s visit also will feature a public lecture.

Her research interests include the economics of aging, health economics and public economics. From 2007-2009, she was the Joel Z. and Susan Hyatt, 1972 Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and previously served as a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. She has had fellowships from the Brookdale Foundation and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

McGarry's research focuses on the well-being of the elderly with particular attention on public and private transfers, including the Medicare and Supplemental Security Income programs and the transfer of resources within families. Her research combines work on the financial aspects of aging with issues related to health economics to examine insurance coverage among the elderly.

She earned a Ph.D. in economics and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Visiting Scholar Program has offered undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America's most distinguished scholars. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of a campus by making possible an exchange of ideas between the visiting scholars and the resident faculty and students. The men and women participating during 2014-2015 will visit more than 100 colleges and universities, spending two days at each one.